February has come and gone and there are only a few teams left besides the Ivy’s who haven’t started their 2021 campaign. The Big East and Big Ten are both two games through their conference season already. By the time we get through March it should be a lot easier to paint our crystal ball and look ahead at the NCAA Tournament picture. Plenty of teams are off to hot starts, as is usual for the beginning of the season, but we have also seen some uncertain teams rise through February and into the Top-10 of the rankings early in the year. Rutgers is off to their hottest start in recent memory. Georgetown has allowed two total goals in two games of Big East play. Army’s only loss was to the hands of Virginia in their first game of the year.
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Without further ado, here is my Week 3 Division 1 Top 20. The middle of the Top 10 boasts three teams we don’t usually see this high in the rankings. Georgetown, Army and Rutgers have been three of the best teams in the country thus far.
- Duke
- North Carolina
- Maryland
- Georgetown
- Army
- Rutgers
- Syracuse
- Notre Dame
- Virginia
- Loyola
- Ohio State
- Denver
- Penn State
- Umass
- Albany
- Lehigh
- Navy
- Richmond
- High Point
- Hofstra
Dropped out: Stony Brook
Let’s start off with some of the action from this past weekend. Maryland and Penn State kicked things off on Friday night in Happy Valley and Penn State came out firing but could not represent that on the scoreboard. Penn State had one of the best highlights of the weekend when Landon’s Nate Buller went behind the back here. But Maryland’s defense essentially shut down Penn State en route to pouring it on in the second half to take this one 13-7. Jared Bernhardt turned in a 3 goal 4 assist performance while Mac O’Keefe was held to 1 goal on 5 shots. Penn State had a balanced performance on offense but couldn’t get past Logan McNaney who had 16 saves on the night.
This weekend was the biggest weekend thus far, and I see myself writing this same sentence next week. 24 total games Saturday and Sunday. Here’s a quick recap on the other in-state teams.
UMBC 8, Mount 7 – An early game…11am start and was a slow one offensively. Mount saw a 5-2 halftime lead disappear by the end of the fourth, and Mason Edwards grabbed the opening OT faceoff ground ball and took it down to score.
Richmond 11, Towson 10 – Another slow start to the game, with most of the scoring coming in the second half. Towson took a 9-6 lead after three quarters with a 7-1 third quarter but Richmond came right back and outscored the Tigers 5-1 in the 4th.
Hopkins 14, Michigan 7 – Hopkins finished the game on a 12-3 run to take down the Wolverines 14-7. A big win for Hopkins after last week’s debacle. Good for them to get their first win under Coach Milliman heading into rivalry week with Maryland coming up. Joey Epstein (Landon) had 6 goals on 8 shots.
Loyola 20, Utah 8 – Loyola dominated the latter half of this game and was in control throughout. Their defense stifled Utah all afternoon as the Utes only got 30 shots on goal. The Hounds open up Patriot League action with Lehigh next weekend.
Navy 13, Jacksonville 6 – On a rainy Sunday in Annapolis, Navy fired things up late in the second quarter and didn’t look back from there. After going down 4-1 after one quarter, Navy finished on a 12-2 run. Stats wise the game was pretty even despite Navy having a 17-6 advantage at the X.
Rutgers 22, Ohio State 12 – Rutgers controlled this game from the start, as they play with uncontrollable pace. They just about doubled up Ohio State in shots, and the trio of Connor Kirst, Adam Charlambides and Kieran Mullins will be a lot to handle this spring. Rutgers is an experienced team, and if you can’t score with them you likely won’t beat them.
Syracuse 20, Virginia 10 – Syracuse showed its midfield dominance on Saturday evening in a drubbing of one of the nation’s most talented teams. Brendan Curry (Calvert Hall) paved the way for Syracuse with 3 goals and 4 assists. Cuse also dominated the faceoff X. The jury is not out just yet in the ACC. Expect this conference to come down to whoever plays well in the ACC Tournament.
Other Quick Hits
I think the Big East will come down to the two following teams: Georgetown allowed only one goal again this past weekend in a 19-1 win over St. John’s. The Hoyas toughest test will come against Denver in two weeks. Jake Carraway broke the Georgetown all-time goals record over the weekend. Denver chewed up and spit out Providence after scoring 23 on them and it seems like Denver’s transfer-heavy offense has started to click. Keep an eye on these two moving forward.
The ACC has some of the highest powered, scoring at will offenses college lacrosse has seen in years. Including Syracuse, four ACC teams put up over 17 goals this past weekend. North Carolina and High Point played their second game against each other in two weeks, this one quite different from the last. A high scoring game to start, UNC rolled away with it using two scoring runs of 8-0 and 9-0. North Carolina had 13 different goal scorers. Notre Dame opened its season with a 19-7 win over Robert Morris. Duke continued the trend by taking down Air Force 17-7.
NEXT WEEKEND
And with that, we are on to March. Like I have said before, nobody will win a championship with their play in February. Especially during a year like this one, where plenty of teams have been limited in practice and have undergone major roster shakeups, February is most important in terms of knocking the rust off, developing chemistry, and exposing/correcting weaknesses in preparation for the months ahead.
Maryland-Hopkins – Saturday, 1pm
The first of two “The Rivalry” games this year. What happens if they split games? Who knows? Maryland is coming into this one 2-0 and Michigan at 0-2. Maryland looks sharp offensively and they are shutting down opposing offenses with ease. Logan McNaney looks awesome in the cage. I think Maryland will be able to control this game starting with their defense. Hopkins will look for Joey Epstein to get open on the wing, but I think the Terps will shut this down from the start. I don’t envision it to get crazy high scoring. Maryland will do enough offensively to win with ease.
Penn State-Ohio St – Saturday, TBD
Staying in the Big Ten, we find ourselves at a huge game for both of these teams. Penn State still looks out of sync offensively without Grant Ament. Mac O’Keefe has two goals on twelve shots so far. Penn State needs to find ways to get him the ball. Ohio State is also coming off a humbling loss to Rutgers. Defensively they cannot allow this one to get out of hand with long scoring droughts. Ohio State dodged well two weeks ago. Look for them to use isolation again this weekend.
Richmond-Duke – Sunday, 4pm
Can Duke continue their offensive firepower? Considering they have three separate midfield lines who would be #1 lines at almost any other school, I think so. Richmond was able to take Chris Gray out of the game a couple weeks ago, but unfortunately Duke I think has more ways to run their offense than just through Michael Sowers. Look for Richmond to try to slow down Sowers. Even if they do, I think Duke wins handily.
Loyola-Lehigh – Saturday, 1pm
This will be a big game in the Patriot League’s opening weekend. These two are in the top-4 in this conference, all of whom can contend come May. Loyola’s offense is coming along well after scoring last weekend while Lehigh had a nice tune-up in NJIT.
Syracuse-Vermont – Saturday, 1pm
Is Syracuse back? That is the real question here. They looked to have it figured out last weekend when they crushed Virginia. Vermont could be a trap game, or it could be another blowout. The Catamounts are coming off an opening loss to Bryant. Cuse could either roll or be surprised this weekend. I lean the former.
Races to watch in March:
The race for top dog in the ACC. Right now, all 5 teams are in the mix. March could shake out one maybe two teams, but I think the ACC is too deep for the last placed ACC team to be considered done. Let’s check back in on this in a month.
Like I said before, the Big East will be a fun one between Georgetown and Denver. The two teams will play each other twice in the regular season. I am hoping for a couple of tight games and considering the Big East’s double round robin we might see an upset from another Big East team like Marquette or Villanova.
The Patriot League is also sneakily deep in 2021. Loyola, Army, Lehigh and Army should all give each other battles, and thus far I would have to put the first three chasing Army. Army and Loyola looked complete this past weekend, and both have only lost to Virginia.
Lacrosse Analyst
Sam Kuhn currently is the graduate assistant for the men’s lacrosse program at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio and is working to complete his Masters of Business Administration in 2020. Sam graduated from the College of Wooster in 2018, where he received his Bachelors Degree in English and played lacrosse as well. In his four years, Sam was a two time All-NCAC selection, a first team All-Region selection in 2018, and surpassed 100 goals for his career, one of seven members in program history to do so. Sam has interned with Inside Lacrosse, and wrote for the sports section of The Wooster Voice.